


Sky

by Gabubu



Series: Fabulous Bending Brothers: Family, Malady, and the Aftermath [6]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Bolincentric, Childhood, Gen, Loneliness, Waiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-07
Updated: 2012-12-07
Packaged: 2017-11-20 12:36:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/585489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gabubu/pseuds/Gabubu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was alone. And he feared the sky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sky

**Author's Note:**

> Bolin is between the ages of 6 and 10 here.

Subdued, the stabs of the grand, massive buildings kept the eternal expanse above at bay. Below it, a small boy silently stared at it, bright green eyes round disks. Clad in well-worn smudged rags, the boy uncomfortably sat against a rough wall. He was alone. And he feared the sky. It ended somewhere the boy didn't understand, if it ended at all. It began everywhere. Or nowhere. It changed colors, dancing across black to blue to gray to speckled pink and orange, to blue, sometimes dotted in a white puffiness. Sometimes it became dark while it was bright: dooming, malicious clouds possessing their airy counterparts. His lips trembled in those times, tears threatening to flee down his small round face– hand itching to grasp a warm, comforting hand. But alone he waited.

Sounds erupted everywhere: silence loud at the sky's darkest moments, shifting to smoke, laughter, voices, screeches, clatters, and unidentifiable notes as the sky became more active, shifting and shifting as the sun skimmed across. He often hid from the sky. The surrounding mountains; the cold, gray buildings; or sticky hands offered a temporary shield from the sky's stare. But buildings swapped out shadows. Mountains offered few solace in their distance. Grubby hands grew tired of covering tightly clenched eyes.

Keeping out of trouble– hiding from the city– his only companion was often the sky. It taunted the boy. Absences grew longer as the sky bid its time before shifting. Every change alerted of a possible complication: rain, heat, thunder, lighting, loss. Sometimes the earth, embracing him reassuringly, didn't offer enough solace. Jarring, blistering heat rained from the sky; cold water beamed from it. The mountains seemed far, then. The buildings too short. His hands too fatigued.

The sky made him cry, sometimes. Salty tears cleansed a path down his clammy face. It was so big, so changing, so present. When the sky changed too much, waltzed its waltz and a tall, thin boy failed to appear, the seated, toes-dipped-in-earth boy despaired. In those days, nights, dawns, sunsets, and midnights of waiting: only the sky watched over the boy. Only the sky sat with the boy, against the rough, dirty brick. Pressed against the soothing depth of soil. Only the eternal nothingness heard the rumbles in his belly and in his heart. Only the sky witnessed his loneliness.

But there were days the sky was almost a friend. The bright, sunny, airy days a shriveled yet tall boy arrived. The times the boy ate. The times his hand sat clasped in another's. The sky showed her or his friendliness by not being too cold or too warm, on those times. By refraining from dripping water and by clouding over the sun. Yet, the moments of friendliness ebbed as the sky changed again. As the warmer, taller, older boy departed. As the sky changed too much again and he remained seated against the scratchy wall, indented into earth, hand itching to grasp a warm one again. As the sky transformed wicked: rain pelting or sun blasting; cold flaring or heat blistering. Lips trembled again. He was alone; and he feared the sky.


End file.
